denning

I just love how the track looks like so similar to the design used on modern Intamin coasters. This looks like Mavericks granddaddy

The layout for both sides was included in the old Disney's Coaster videogame.

It has been proven time and time again that entertainment demand is relatively inelastic and recession-proof. When times are tough, the escapism and release from the day to day worries that a movie or themepark offers is huge for a family. Local themepark attendance will likely go up, for families that can not afford to go on a lengthy summer vacation or road trip, one day at a local park, taking advantage of the usual available discounts, is the perfect escape that can be factored into most budgets. Week long family trips to Disneyworld, Europe requiring air fare will be hit, but not local daytrips. This should be good for Six Flags and CF. Remember, six flags original concept was to fight Disney by possible as a day trip for almost all Americans with a park within a three hour drive.

I was there today and took a bunch of pictures. I will post them tommorow evening. Long story short, it must be as rumored before a movie attraction of some short, probably circlevision-esque with water invovled. The space is NOT big enough for anything else. They could not fit a dark ride or an unique attraction in that space. There is very little work going outside the main tablerock building. And the location is too unique to the falls to do anything extreme. It could have been an upgrade to the scenic tunnels/ "journey behind the falls" but that attraction was running normally so I don't think it is invovled.

My wife always mocks my lens envy as she thinks it is Men trying to overcompensate for their other "shortcommings". But I have to tell you the Kit lens that came with my Rebel SLR is feeling very very pathetic right now.

Designed like your typical disney/universal ride, typical boring, normal ride "and then something goes wrong" no different than Biff stealing a time machine, the raptors breaking lose, Rex making a wrong turn, etc, etc.

For a high school project at least 15 years ago I designed a wooden rollercoaster called the Dinosaur which was to themed be the world's oldest rollercoaster which was run down and decrepit at a soon to be abadoned park. The ride would be highly themed to be as old as possible, portions would be made fibreglass instead of wood to look rotten and decayed. There would be speakers all over the ride to make cracking wood sounds and there would loud wheel squeals as you passed around each corner. The lift hill would have hydraulics on the side to make it sway and feel as ricketity as possible. Near the end of the ride you would see the track ending and the brakes would slam on with a nice little spark effect with the train finally stopping at least 100-150 feet in the air right at the edge or as near the edge as optically possible to scare riders. Riders would hear over the PA Speakers staff yell, "hang on tight we are coming to get you. Don't worry" All the while you would hear the wood cracking get louder and louder. With the train locked into a section of secret trick track, the entire trick section would actually be a drop ride element, so just when it sounds like the entire wood structure was going down, the entire coaster car would drop 20 stories into an underground tunnel where the coaster portion would resume to the exit area. While I had always thought that the technology needed for the ride would be unreasonable or expensive, the fake stop and trick track were used on expedition everest so it might have been possible after all. Oh well.

The good news is that wonderland is not too far from the US border, only an 1.5 with bad traffic. So you can easily fill up in Buffalo before crossing over and avoid the evil Canadian gas prices.

Sounds amazing. Especially since the park will be packed midday as it is a national holiday, the Q&A will be a great escape from the lines.

The Question should be not historically but if you were today make a capital outlay to be the rights for one of the rides what will be rate of return be on the ride. I would assume that Manhatten Expreses's year-round status, it's line and it's cost per ride would make it number one, but I would love to see the figures. When went to Boomers for the Daria Beach Hurricane I kept thinking the cost per ride was barely profitable.

As per Saint Cartman: Don't you see? Forever it has been my dream to have my very own theme park, so that I could be alone in it, all day, every day. I love theme parks. [zoom in] But the lines! Everywhere you go, people, crowds, [shot of people waiting to enter "The Mine Shaft"] The rides are great, but... [a shot of crowds on Main Street] All the lines, lines, LINES! [shot of people waiting to enter a ghost ride, another shot of a kids' mine shaft ride; another of Cartman pissed off, eyes squeezed shut, with waiting times floating past him] If there's one thing I hate, [a shot of two lines of people entering his head] all the lines, lines, lines, LINES!! [opens his eyes, and a moment later...] And then there get to be so many people [his eyes roll around independently of each other] that they make FastPass. [a shot of people in a FastPass line] So then there's lines for FastPass. [zoom out to show Cartman in line for a FastPass] You stand in line to get a ticket to stand in line later. Then there's lines for the bathrooms [two lines for the Waterworks Restrooms], lines for the drinks [Astro Food line], lines for cantakuras [seussian characters play strange instruments for the people in line] and rare Kartankulas Plinks! [a vendor sells them - they are a fruit treat shaped like strawberries] ...And, so you see, this park is for me. Nobody else will be allowed in it.

The biggest problem with fast passes is getting spoiled by fast passes. I am a newlywed and my wife has started to accompany to parks, and we started with the big ones. Disneyland with a private guide (we won it in a contest) Six Flags Great Adventure with a Gold Qbot And then Universal Orlando staying onsite with unlimited express. Having experienced the joy of "fastpass", we went to Cedar Point this summer and had a miserable time. Once you have experienced the joys of not waiting in line, doing the rides at your pace, waiting an hour plus for 90 seconds is unbearable. Even with Disney's fastpass, you can go for lunch, a walk, ride another ride while waiting, instead of being stuck in a long, boring queue. As it has been said above, when you factor in all of the costs of themeparking, even the gold qbot is the biggest steal there is. At this point, even if money is tight we would rather go to a park every other year and do it right with fastpass, then go every year and wait in line. I just hope that Behemoth brings to wonderland a nice fastpass system. Heres to institutionalized bribery with respect to lines!

The source of the debt was the aquistion of the premier parks. Six Flags used to be a small and very profitable chain of wait for it, six parks. The debt was not created by the parks losing money, however, if some of the parks are not cash flow positive in that their revenue does not exceed the carrying charges of the debt there are troubles to be found. Problem is no one will buy the problematic parks unless it is at a substantial discount which is probably less cost effective than just continue to operate them while improving economies of scale.

For food, I would move to an honest pricing scheme. Bring in outside vendors who will list the price of the food at the usual cost, ie. $4.95 for extra value meal on the left side of the board before "taxes" and then the final price on the right side of the board after "taxes". On the bottom of the menu board, I would list the taxes to include a 20% park convience surcharge. That way, customers know exactly how much extra they are paying to have the themepark experience. 20% in profit on all sales should be more than sufficient for the books, while not letting the customers feel abused. If I knew that I was buying food with an explicit and reasonable price upcharge, I would be happy. I don't care about paying extra, I care about being charged $4 for a bottle of water.

I am not the biggest fan of packing your own lunch or eating huge meals before you go. Theme park food, funnel cakes, greasy fries, hot dogs are part of the experience, just like sporting events. We just try to limit ourselves to thinks that aren't insanely overpriced when compared to eating at a restaurant or a mall foodcourt. So I am not offended by a $7 chicken finger and fry platter, while the $4 bottle of water is extortion.

Kid's Meals! The Kid's Meals at Disney are an incredible value. No one bats an eye when you order it as they assume you getting it for your screaming child. The Yak N Yeti takeout deal is amazing, $4.99 gets you a huge serving of chicken fingers, fries and a nice sized portion of chicken fried rice, plus either a small bottle of water or a soda. If there was a deal that good out of a themepark I would gladly grab that for lunch.

There was supposed to be a DisneyQuest opening in downtown Toronto as part of huge downtown transformation. Basically, the city has attempted to create its version of Times Square and DisneyQuest was to be the anchor tenant. After Chicago failed, the project was delayed for several years. It's finally buildt with a giant Best Buy like store and a multi-plex. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_Life_Square I think if there is any truth to the rumor, it may be a purchase of or something near Marineland. Niagra Falls is a major tourist destination and its about an hour from Toronto without traffic.

We are going Feb 2nd and have one day to do a waterpark, would you pick WnW or Typhoon Lagoon. Admisson seems to be the same price, but WnW seems to have cooler rides, Typhoon the better theme. We have never been to either. Is it really debatable?

I am going to Disneyworld in two weeks for one night, our flight arrives at 9am on saturday and the parks are closing pretty early. One of the reasons we choose to stay onsite was for the free parking perk. We were hoping to go right to the park, does anyone know if showing a print out of our reservation is enough or do we have to check in first? I would love to save time and avoid the hassel of heading to the hotel first, is this possible? Also, I am short a one-day park hopper ticket (we have three for two people over two days). Any great no-expiration deals out there, or should I just spend the second day non-hopping with a one day pass?

If there ever was an ad for protecting your privacy and keeping your past off the internet - this it. Rob went instantly from the cool guy we all went to hang out with, the guy with the supercute baby, awesome wife and superfun friends to well, how I do I say it nicely, a man who once wore a patch jacket. This is like those cheesy Barbara Walter specials that try to show that the stunning movie star was once a gawky teen in high school who could never get a date.

We went Pop century for our next trip, 3 years newer and only one stop for the buses. But I am wondering everyone else's opinion as well.

It's topped! http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aVPNgY0

Coaster porn from today. It looks amazing from the Italian Job and Minebuster. Seat layout may not be the best, but who cares the ride will be amazing.

I care much more about the quality of the ride than the credit. So at CP or GL, I went to Maverick and Dominator a second time versus the wildcat or the double loop. Quality over quanity.

I am shocked that it is half the price of maverick. Those LSMs and extra trains can't be that much more expensive. I guess there was the extra heartline roll handling charge.